This volume is the first systematic study of coartación, a process by which slaves worked toward purchasing their freedom in installments. Focusing on Cuba, this book reveals that instead of providing a “path to manumission,” the process was often rife with obstacles that blocked slaves from achieving liberty.

Waiting for Contact tells the story of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) movement, which emerged in 1959 as new technological developments turned what once was speculation into science: astronomers began using radio telescopes to listen for messages from space. Boosted by support from Frank Drake, Philip Morrison, and Carl Sagan, the SETI movement gained followers and continues to capture imaginations today

Demonstrating remarkable parallels between specific events and performers of the Rites and the episodes and characters comprising Finnegans Wake, Gibson shows that every event and performer at the Rites has a correlate in the novel, and all Wakean episodes and performers have their parallels in the Rites of Tara. Ultimately, he argues, Joyce structured his novel according to the Teamhur Feis, and Finnegans Wake is a calculated reenactment of the most important event in Irish paganism.

Eberl emphasizes that individual decision-making—the ability to imagine alternate worlds and to act on that vision—plays a large role in changing social structure over time. Pinpointing where and when these Maya inventions emerged, how individuals adopted them and why, War Owl Falling connects technological and social change in a novel way.

The contributors to this volume examine how Lincoln actively and consciously managed the war--diplomatically, militarily, and in the realm of what we might now call public relations--and in doing so, reshaped and redefined the fundamental role of the president.